Booklet Power from the Glens. Hydro Electricity
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Power from the Glens Neart nan Gleann This booklet is dedicated to the memory of the ‘Hydro Boys’ whose legacy is the largest source of renewable energy in the country. PO WER FROM THE GLENS - ‘NEAR T NAN GLEANN’ THE GLENS - ‘NEAR WER FROM PO Contents Hydro schemes Foreword 1 Shin 8 Tummel Valley 18 Hydro electric schemes 2 Conon 10 Breadalbane 20 How it all began 3 Affric/Beauly 12 Sloy/Awe 22 Working with Great Glen 14 Renewable energy the power of nature 5 Foyers 16 for the 21st century 24 Scottish and Southern Energy is one of the largest energy companies in the United Kingdom. It is involved in the generation, transmission, distribution and supply of electricity; energy trading; the storage, distribution and supply of gas; electrical, environmental and utility contracting; domestic appliance retailing; and telecoms. It is the leading generator of electricity from renewable resources in the UK, owning and operating around 40% of the country’s total capacity. Scottish and Southern Energy the Highlands vital access to Foreword owns and operates around 40% modernity by harnessing ‘power of the United Kingdom's from the glens’. Half a million renewable energy capacity. people visit the Pitlochry Dam Most of this is hydro electricity, and Fish Ladder each year: a produced in the north of Scotland resounding endorsement of by a highly effective region-wide hydro power’s economic and generating system which this environmental achievements. NAN GLEANN’ ‘NEART publication describes in detail. But as this booklet explains, hydro also has a crucially Despite its century of controversial important future at the history, hydro power has provided forefront of the battle to counter the technical means to give climate change. Emma Wood 2005 POWER FROM THE GLENS - FROM POWER Emma Wood’s book The Hydro Boys’ is published by Luath Press ISBN 1-84282-047-8. 1 Scottish Hydro Electric, then to provide local electricity supplies. Introduction known as the North of Scotland But it took the vision of one man, Hydro Electric Board and now Tom Johnston, the Secretary of part of the Scottish and Southern State for Scotland in Churchill's Energy Group, was established wartime coalition government, to by an Act of Parliament in 1943. bring power from the glens for the It was to be responsible for benefit of all. At the time, it was generating, transmitting, estimated that just one farm in distributing and supplying six, and one croft in a hundred, electricity throughout the north had electricity. Today, virtually of Scotland, including the every home in Scotland has Highlands and Islands. This covers mains electricity. about 25% of the total land area Today, hydro electricity, together of Britain but just 3% of the with wind farms and emerging population. The region contains technologies such as wave and Britain’s highest mountains and tidal power, is helping the country largest inland lochs which, meet its commitment to provide combined with high rainfall, increasing amounts of energy from make hydro electricity viable. renewable sources. A major Hydro electricity is produced using refurbishment programme of the power of running water to turn Scottish Hydro Electric’s hydro the turbines of generating sets in stations has ensured these power stations. The technology wonderful assets can produce dates back to the late 19th clean electricity for the nation Century when the first privately for decades to come. owned hydro electric power stations were built to power the aluminium smelting industry and Thurso Wick ‘NEART NAN GLEANN’ ‘NEART Scottish Hydro Electric Schemes Shin Dornoch Ullapool Conon Elgin Nairn PO WER FROM THE GLENS - THE GLENS WER FROM PO Dingwall Peterhead Affric/ Inverness Beauly Foyers Great Kingussie Aberdeen Glen Tummel 2 Valley Fort William Clunie Pitlochry Breadalbane Dundee Oban Sloy/ Perth Awe Stirling Edinburgh Glasgow Hydro electric schemes and catchment areas How it all began The first successful public supply of hydro electricity provided power to the Benedictine Abbey in Fort Augustus, at the west end of Loch Ness, and to 800 inhabitants of the Surveying during construction at Pitlochry village. The year was 1890. It was to be another 40 years before the first large-scale scheme came into operation, in 1930. This development, The first attempts to get approval By 1965, 54 main power stations and at Rannoch and Tummel Bridge in for two schemes, Tummel/Garry and 78 dams had been built, providing a Perthshire, was built by the Grampian Loch Duntelchaig, were strongly total generating capacity of over Electricity Supply Company. opposed and resulted in the 1,000 megawatts. (A megawatt resignation, in 1946, of the Board’s (MW) = 1,000,000 watts). Over 300 Testament to the speed of change first chairman, Lord Airlie. So it was kilometres of rock tunnel had been possible in the shadow of the Second under the stewardship of the second excavated and a similar length of World War, during the period between chairman, Tom Johnston, that most aqueducts and pipelines constructed. 3 1941 and 1947, the newly-formed of the construction of the Board’s first Over 32,000 kilometres of electricity Council of State for Scotland had scheme, at Sloy, near Loch Lomond, network was built to distribute the considered the potential for hydro was done, with the station being electricity throughout the north of electric development in the north commissioned in 1950. Scotland, with a further 110 of the country. An enquiry was kilometres of submarine cable taking established into what development In 1948, the Electricity Supply power to the major Scottish islands. was possible and what type of body Industry in Britain was nationalised. should undertake it. The assets of the Grampian Electricity All this work was achieved by a Supply Company and other public workforce that averaged 4,500, and The committee’s report was producers in northern Scotland were which, at its peak, numbered about published in 1942 and the Hydro taken over by the North of Scotland 12,000. In many cases, the workforce Electric Development (Scotland) Act Hydro Electric Board. Its challenge was made up of a mixture of British was passed in 1943. The Act was to combine these existing assets workmen and German and Italian recommended the creation with new schemes which would be former prisoners of war. This provided of a board to manage hydro built over the next 20 or so years, a significant financial boost for the generation in the north, to be known to harness the water power of the area but was not always welcomed as the North of Scotland Hydro Highlands. These would provide by local landowners, many of whom Electric Board. electricity to the northern part of had a vested interest in keeping the Scotland on a scale which would Highlands exactly as they had been otherwise have been impossible. for years before. Temporary camps like these housed up to 3,000 workers Then, as now, new development was greeted with concern for the environment and amenity. Many feared that the construction of power stations and dams would damage tourism ‘NEART NAN GLEANN’ ‘NEART which was already a major employer in Scotland. There was also concern that if electricity was to become readily available, industry would be attracted to the area, causing further damage to tourism and the established way of life. Lord Airlie, the first Chairman of the North of Scotland Hydro Electric Board, knew better when he said: POWER FROM THE GLENS - FROM POWER “Do not let anybody think that the Highlands are going to become repopulated and revived by an influx After the Second World War, men They could be tough places to live, of generating stations. This is wholly from all over Scotland came to work with food and accommodation of false. Industry on a heavy scale will on the schemes, attracted by high variable quality. Off duty, there was never come to the Highlands, because wages. The highest wages were little for the workers to do but drink. it is common sense that it is easier to earned by the men who dug the 4 As a result, alcohol-fuelled fights were bring current to industry than industry tunnels. Germans, Poles and Czechs commonplace, with local police being to the current.” This is still true today, were acknowledged to be skilled called upon to restore the peace all as many of the renewable energy tunnellers. They became known as too regularly. schemes developed in Scotland export the Tunnel Tigers because of their their output to meet demands in other cavalier approach to safety in their By the 1960s, the face of the parts of Britain. quest to earn the huge bonuses that Highlands had changed forever. New were available. The lower regard for dams headed new, or larger, lochs. health and safety issues than there Rivers had been diverted through is today inevitably led to high accident aqueducts and underground tunnels, rates and deaths amongst the and power stations settled on loch- workers. No definitive accident sides. Electricity lines on steel pylons statistics exist, but in one camp alone, and wooden poles distributed which housed some 1,000 workers electricity to remote settlements and at its peak, there were 22 deaths in individual crofts, bringing the power just one year. from the glens into people’s homes. Life would never be the same again. For the vast majority of workers the Today, what was once feared as rewards were great. In the late 1940s, a threat to tourism, now actually a Tunnel Tiger could expect to earn up attracts visitors. The dam and fish to £35 a week, compared to £3 or £4 ladder at Pitlochry, a town which once for a Highland estate worker.